A Pointless Blacklisting

LAST week, the United States designated the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network a “foreign terrorist organization,” placing it alongside Hamas and Al Qaeda. But to what end?

America and its allies have learned a lot over the past decade in Afghanistan. But some fundamentals have remained elusive and shrouded in stereotypes.

To brand a group a foreign terrorist organization is not only a firm declaration that it is an enemy; it also limits America’s future political options. Although it’s possible to be delisted, groups on such lists find it difficult to get off them. Moreover, labeling the Haqqanis terrorists dislodges them from the wider Taliban insurgency, making a comprehensive settlement harder to achieve.

The decisions we make today will shape and constrain our future policies. Between 2002 and 2004, for example, some senior Taliban leaders sought reconciliation and cooperation with the Afghan government and the international community. The negative responses they received left little room but to pursue the path of resistance. Likewise, listing the Haqqanis as an F.T.O. now will deter them from coming to the negotiating table. It will also be seen as a sign of American insincerity by the Taliban and thus play into the hands of those opposed to a conciliatory approach.

The Haqqanis are cast as calculating players in the continuing business of “global jihad” and have gained notoriety for their spectacularly violent attacks in Afghanistan, many targeting American troops. Being enmeshed in a universe of groups and individuals along the Afghan-Pakistani border, some of whom have sought to carry out attacks in and against foreign countries, doesn’t help their image. But the view that they are an irreconcilable, rigidly ideological enemy should be questioned.

The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Michael T. Flynn, said in 2010 that the group’s leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani, was “absolutely salvageable” and open to reconciliation. Graeme Lamb, a former commander of Britain’s Special Air Service, has characterized Mr. Haqqani as being a pragmatist “tied to the probability of outcomes” and called Afghanistan “the land of the deal.”

In recent years, the Haqqanis and people close to them have made contact with Afghan, American and other Western officials. Ibrahim Omari (sometimes called Ibrahim Haqqani), a younger brother of Mr. Haqqani, met with American officials in 2011 in Dubai. Another more recent meeting seems to have taken place (without Americans) in Saudi Arabia.

To suggest that they are implacable foes also ignores the long history of pragmatism and political calculations that have informed the Haqqani leaders’ actions for 40 years. Mr. Omari worked together with the Afghan government in 2002, although his efforts to broker discussions eventually led to his being arrested and allegedly tortured. Since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, American policy has often rested on an overestimation of the West’s ability to understand the situation in Afghanistan, leading to poor decisions and ineffective initiatives that have frequently been self-defeating.

The current war effort relies heavily on drones and night raids in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but these tactics often increase radicalization and enmity. And the industrial-scale targeting of midlevel Taliban commanders in Afghanistan has led to the rise of a younger, more uncompromising generation of leaders. The designation of the Haqqanis as an F.T.O. will only erode America’s relationship with Pakistan and decrease the likelihood of Pakistan’s playing a constructive role in facilitating (or not spoiling) any reconciliation process.

And the F.T.O. listing doesn’t matter much for the Haqqanis’ operations. After all, there can be no winner in the current stalemate. The military argument that the Taliban have lost momentum is a nonstarter. This is as true for the Haqqanis as it is for the whole insurgency. Many Afghans living in places like Kandahar don’t believe the relative calm of the past two years will last. Even in heavily secured cities like Kabul, attacks continue to be carried out.

Most of the senior Haqqani commanders and family members are already on international blacklists. They are involved in the Afghan conflict to secure for themselves a future political role. Only a political process that engages them, rather than systematically sidelining them, will help end the war. One possible starting point for such a process would be some form of cease-fire. Indeed, Britain’s Royal United Services Institute recently outlined the potential for such a general cease-fire agreement.

President Obama claims he has refocused America’s effort in Afghanistan on those who attacked us: Al Qaeda. But the misguided ideology of the war on terror is still dictating passions and policies in the United States. And Washington’s move to blacklist and marginalize the Haqqanis gravely threatens the prospects for a political settlement, which is the only way out of the Afghan conflict.